TOO MANY STATUES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 149, 5 April 1933, Page 8

TOO MANY STATUES.

ABBEY "MONSTROSITIES," Should some of the Westminster Abbey monuments be moved? Dr. Foxley Norris, the Dean of Westminster, addressing the Architectural Association in London a few weeks: ago, said: "We are in need of more accommodation for our congregation, and there are great masses of sculpture occupying most valuable space exactly where that space is needed. Some of those may have to be removed. There really is not room to walk in procession. "Which artist has the greater claim to consideration, the artist who designed and carried out the aisles, arcades, and spaces and vistas of a superb building like the Abbey, or the sculptor who in order to place his masses in the light was allowed, and ought never to have been allowed, to ruin the architecture of the Abbey itself? "How many monuments do you think there are in the Abbey that really deserve a permanent place there ? There are multitudes whose names you would not know if I mentioned them, whose I reason for. commemoration in the Abbey no one would have the slightest idea of, and I ask whether 100 years or 50 i years in their case is not sufficient." At the same time the Dean denied that there is any scheme for the neconstruction of an annexe to the Abbey or for the removal of monuments on any large .scale. "J am aware," said the Dean, "that there are monstrosities, and some are vulgar things, but we have with the Abbey a more or less complete catalogue showing the gradual growth of taste in the matter of monumental memorials for the past 300 or 400 years and there.is-nothing like it anywhere else. I would never consent to any one of the Abbey monuments being destroyed, but there is much to be said for some being removed to other public buildings where they will be more suitably housed." The Dean stated that he has moved fivo monuments in the past year, including Wordsworth's to Poet's Corner. He had the consent of the Government and relatives,,